200 WILD LIFE IN HARD WEATHER 



after a week of uninterrupted frost. An unfore- 

 seen catastrophe has befallen the weakhngs of 

 Nature's flock. No sufficient provision has been 

 made to meet the sudden cruelty with which an 

 erstwhile bountiful hand turns the key that 

 closes the storehouse door. Disinherited and 

 forlorn, the wild wanderers by wood and hedge- 

 row eke out a bitter existence in mute appeal 

 against the inexorable fate which has driven 

 them forth upon the bleak face of a barren world. 

 When the mildness of our chmate is rudely dis- 

 turbed by piercing east or north-east winds 

 succeeding a fall of snow, the conditions of hfe 

 in our temperate latitudes are similar to those 

 existing in Arctic regions. But the habits of our 

 wild creatures are different. Along hnes of migra- 

 tion known for ages, Arctic birds and animals 

 move southw^ards in the dusk of the darkening 

 winter night. Once arrived at their usual 

 resting-place, they for some unaccountable 

 reason seem disincHned to jom^ney fm-ther 

 south. 



Overtaken by unexpected severity of weather, 

 redwdngs and fieldfares die in thousands from 

 privation and cold. One morning, in a recent 

 winter, thirty-three of these birds were picked 

 up dead on a small farm of forty acres. Even 

 our native birds suffer greatly from any unusual 

 continuance of cold. Wood-pigeons, among 



